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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004133">next year, in jerusalem</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>likewise [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blanket Permission, Gen, Religion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:00:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,248</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s got a singular ticket for Israel.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>likewise [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858870</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>next year, in jerusalem</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fifth thing you should know: Sam used to wear a cross. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Jess dies. Jess dies, and some part in Sam breaks, cracks wide open. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, no logic, but he looks in Dean’s eyes the next day and he knows what he’s doing. Knows he’s making a mistake, but fuck it, it’s his mistake to make, he’s an adult, and damn if Dean’s allowed to keep him from it. </p>
<p>He does what he does best and leaves. He thinks, <em> it doesn’t matter where, </em>but he’s lying, his fingers are itching, somewhere far, so separated from the continental United States that he can’t even pinpoint where he used to be on the horizon. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Airports are grimy, dirty places, especially the big city ones: footprints from all over the world, Relays selling overpriced gum and cheap headphones, designer brand shops with jittery silver lights and shiny tiled floors. Washrooms with gums stuck on the stall wall and tarnished locks. He has to leave his gun in security, and he feels like an idiot, like he should’ve known. </p>
<p>There were a lot of things he should’ve known. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Jerusalem is suffocating: three religions crammed into one place, people on their bent knees with heads dipped to the ground at every corner. The same modern cityscape as everywhere, but with strange background lighting, the Dome of the Rock reflecting the sunset and crammed rock tunnel crevices where you’d expect a side street. </p>
<p>He doesn't miss America, doesn’t miss Dean, doesn’t miss anything. The whole world’s gone blurred, fuzzy around the edges and hollow in the middle. He books a round-the-detours bus to Jericho, blurred sand lines carved in the dusty red rock and everything, and he wants to laugh, spit out blood. </p>
<p>In the Bible, there were date trees. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>When Sam was little, he was obsessed with the Bible. He’d check every motel drawer for a copy of the Holy Book, look for it every time they went into a church. At first it was just a confirmation: a singular constant in a world where nothing ever stayed the same, where Dad rarely talked and Dean wouldn’t tell him why they had left home, why mommy wasn’t there anymore. </p>
<p>He remembers the first time there hadn’t been a Bible in the room, a strange little cottage-like place on the East coast that overlooked the moody waves of the Atlantic. He’d torn the drawers apart trying to find the book, kept Dean up all night until his brother had finally groaned: “For fuck’s sake, Sammy, it’s not <em> there, </em>” and hadn’t understood when Sam started crying, sheets clutched tightly in his fists. </p>
<p>Eventually he just went kleptomaniac, took to stealing copies and wearing them thin, taking another one until that one went ragged too. It was the one book he <em> could </em>find, where he didn’t have to worry about bookstores or libraries, because in small-town America, they always had a church. </p>
<p>It was inevitable that he’d start reading it at some point, long hours in the car with John driving and Dean asleep or staring out the window, tapping his foot to the beat of Johnny Cash. Over and over again, until he could understand the stained-glass panels on church walls, knew the right words to say when he prayed. </p>
<p>He always kept a copy with him, no matter what happened. Because the Bible had something he had always lacked: absolute faith. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>He calls Dean; two rings, gruff answer: <em> Who the fuck is this? </em> </p>
<p>Sam’s heart splits wide open, the type of thing you can’t fix with stitches. He doesn’t say anything. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>There’s an endless parade of holy sites: he steps down the Via Dolorosa and thinks of dying, putting a gun to his temple then and there. A parade of monks walks by, long robes and constant blessings; he stares after them blankly. </p>
<p>He always liked the idea of forgiveness, that you could do wrong and still go to a good place, become a good person. He thought that’d been what he was doing, when he left his family. He’d put it behind him. </p>
<p>(He can hear Dean’s voice in the back of his head, as familiar as his own, telling him that wasn’t leaving, it’s just running away.) </p>
<p>(Dean. There’s another thing he left. Another reason, sometimes.)</p>
<p>He walks, buys a bag of rugelach and doesn’t eat them, just throws them in his backpack and keeps walking, until he finds where Jesus died. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Sam stares at the sepulcher for a long time, knees on the floor, hard tile giving him shivers. He thinks about martyrs, about things worth dying for. Thinks about Jess. </p>
<p>The golden tomb mocks him, shiny walls and art; like suffering is somehow beautiful, like death is worth making a religion over. </p>
<p>He takes off his cross, and he leaves it on the floor. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>There’s something entirely underrated about faith, he thinks, foot to the ground on the border of Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Thailand, something that these women in veils and men with yarmulkes understand that he never could. How to <em> believe, </em>like you’ve been cut from faith and everything else is an accessory. </p>
<p>He loses his backpack in Lahore, sweat dripping down his back, an afternoon so hot you could fry an egg on the street, and he lets out every blasphemy he knows, wondering if they’ll arrest him, imprison and hang him in the name of someone they don’t even know exists.</p>
<p>He doesn’t pray, that night or after, feels lacking in the crowds that kneel towards Mecca and the one with faith shining in their eyes as they look upon a statue of the Buddha. He doesn’t pray, thinks, maybe he never should have. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>Dean picks up on the third ring. “It’s me,” Sam says, and there’s an exhale of relief, and in it Sam can hear, can see Dean on the road, seventy hours no sleep with a crushed cup of coffee in his hand, America’s backroads spread out around him like broken arteries, and Sam has this sudden pang of <em> want, </em>the type of thing he hasn’t felt since he was thirteen and stupid enough to think the things he wanted were within his reach. </p>
<p>Long pause. “You absolute fucker,” And Sam grimaces, almost a smile, thinks of all the ways he’s fucked up - he loses count. </p>
<p>“I know,” He says, and hangs up. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>He stumbles into the motel room, three in the morning after a fifteen-hour flight with no sleep, fidgeting, and insomniac without a cause. </p>
<p>He jimmies the lock, fucks it up three times, and Dean springs straight up off his bed, looks him dead in the eye. “You came back,” he says, sleep-addled and understated, but Sam gets it. Sam thinks he gets it. “Yeah,” he says, mostly to himself. “I did.” </p>
<p>Dean might have smiled, but Sam’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating. His brother leaves it at that, falls asleep. </p>
<p>There’s only one bed, so Sam sits on the floor, looks out the window to the shadow of the parking lot. Wonders how much of it was true, how much they just made up. Whether it’s worth it, any of it. He thinks of his gun that he left at airport security; an old-fashioned Glock, one of Dean’s favorites.</p>
<p>Eventually he gets sick of it, so he fumbles around in the desk drawer. He starts reading; </p>
<p>“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”</p>
<p>He reads until he falls asleep, until he can’t see straight. </p>
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